Two sermons on the atrocity of suicide : and on the causes which lead to it, preached at Suffield, on Lord's day, Feb. 24, 1805, on occasion of a melancholy instance of suicide, which had recently occurred in that town / by Joseph Lathrop.

  • Lathrop, Joseph, 1731-1820.
Date:
[1805]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two sermons on the atrocity of suicide : and on the causes which lead to it, preached at Suffield, on Lord's day, Feb. 24, 1805, on occasion of a melancholy instance of suicide, which had recently occurred in that town / by Joseph Lathrop. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Itapatietice of life, but often from false notions of honor^ liberty and magnanimity. Among the Britons and the Americans it frequently proceeds from gloominess and de- jection of mind. With such causes the sentiments of infi- delity usually concur: Hence we find, that since the no- tions o{fatalism^ universallsm and annihilation have been avowed, and the doctrine of a future retribution discarded, instances of suicide have been multiplied beyond all for- mer examples. Self-murder is an act so full of horror and so contrary to the feelings of nature, that, in our calm hours, we think ourselves in little danger of it. In our contemplations on death, this kind of death seldom comes into mind. We wish to put far from us the evil day ; and we have no ap- prehension, that we shall hasten it with our own guilty hands. Sut since many have perpetrated this unnatural act, and since we know not what temptations may assail us, it is our wisdom to guard against harm from ourselves, as well as from others. The divine law has not so explicitly and particularly for- bidden this, as it has most other crimes. And the reason is obvious. For before one can bring himself to perpe- trate this act, he must have prostrated all consideration of law and penalty. If the law of nature within him will not restrain him, no external law v/ill have much influence.— When God, as a lawgiver, prohibits any crime, he affixes to the commission of it such a penalty, as may reasonably be supposed sufficient to deter men from it. But m the case of self murder, there is no room for penalty in this world, because the criminal dies by his crime, and is dead before cognizance can be taken of it. Cognizance can be taken only in the other world. But whatever may be the cause, which induces a man to this dreadful act, it first ex-